Walking Alone in the Light
by ecrichard
Summary: When a young boy comes to the flat in search of help, Sherlock and John come to his aid. What begins as a reluctant relationship grows into a strong connection that Sherlock never expected. His past and his present come to life through an unlikely friendship his new client.
1. Chapter 1

"Anything?"

Sherlock peered over for the twentieth time that hour at the computer that John had perched on his laptop.

"Since two minutes ago? No."

Sherlock sighed. "It's been a week."

"A week?" John said. "You can't be serious."

He threw his hands up in outrage. "The Barter case. Last Tuesday."

John pointed his finger at his flatmate. "You were out with Lestrade all day yesterday. What do you call that?"

Sherlock picked at an errant thread on the couch cushion. "That doesn't count. That wasn't mine."

"_Yours_?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I suppose you help."

"Bloody hell I help," John muttered under his breath.

The harsh cold of winter had descended on the flat and John had bundled his legs under a small army of blankets while Sherlock strolled around in his threadbare dressing gown. He couldn't understand the man. Nothing seemed to penetrate that thick skin of his.

"Why don't you call Molly?" John asked.

Sherlock snapped his neck around like John had just asked him to fly to the moon. "Pardon?"

"What, is that so ridiculous?"

"Molly?" he said with a chuckle. "What would she provide?"

John wanted to the strangle the man to get him to stop talking for five minutes. "She deals with all the dead people. You like that kind of thing, huh? Maybe you can help her out."

"Help her out...that's funny John. You're quite clever."

"I try," John said with a smirk.

Sherlock's head did perk up for a moment. "However, there _is_ that experiment I wanted to try on the coagulation of blood on the tongue. Perhaps she has fresh cadavers…"

John grimaced at most of the words coming from Sherlock's mouth. "You two are made for each other. Leave me out of it."

"You're a doctor. Surely you can't be squeamish."

John lay his laptop on the seat next to him. "I just don't like talking about cadavers over my evening tea. I feel that's not an outrageous request."

He walked to the window and let his fingers trace over the snowflakes that had plastered themselves to the glass. They stayed pristine as his nail glided over the intricate designs. "It's snowing," John said with an air of wonder.

Sherlock turned his head. "You're aware I can see out the window as well."

John sighed. "I love the snow. I might go for a stroll a little later. You should come with."

"And risk hypothermia? I think not."

"Hypothermia? You think we're going to camp outside in our swimsuits? Wear a jacket for goodness sakes."

"I'm quite all right," Sherlock said as he grabbed John's laptop and placed it in front of him.

"Oh I don't think so," John said as he rushed from his perch.

"What? I'm just getting the number of St. Bart's."

"Like hell you are," John said.

"So touchy," Sherlock said as he got up from his seat.

"Touchy?" John said with a laugh. "That's one way to put it."

Just as he placed his computer on the desk, the doorbell rang just the way the website described for a potential client. Sherlock's face beamed with excitement. "Well go answer it!"

"Me?" John said.

"You want me to answer it in this?" he said, gesturing to his attire.

"Good point," John said.

Sherlock ran back towards his room to change and John strode down the stairs to answer the door.

The knob was cold to the touch. He wrapped the edge of his sweater around his hand and opened the door. Standing in front of his was a boy, no more than twelve, with his arms held tight against his chest. He shivered as he rubbed his bare arms.

He looked well, not an obvious homeless child but he could never be too sure with whom Sherlock surrounded himself with. He wore a button-down shirt, a pale blue that seemed to signify more of a school uniform and less of a fashion choice of the child. His hair was wet from melted snow and his cheeks were pink.

"Can I come in?" he said through chattering teeth.

John gestured inside. "Of course."

The boy took a few steps into the flat and John shut the door behind him. "You must be freezing."

He nodded. "I forgot my blazer at school. They locked up already so I couldn't go back."

"I see," John said. He pointed towards the stairwell. "Follow me. We'll get you something warm to drink."

John could see Sherlock's head peeking around the doorframe as they walked up the stairs. "Right this way," John said, gesturing inside the flat.

Sherlock had changed into his usual black suit and fixed his hair. However the moment he caught wind of the boy his entire demeanor changed. "Oh," he said in disappointment as the boy walked in.

John put a hand on the boy's back and showed him to the kitchen. "I'm going to make him some tea. You want some?"

Sherlock pouted on the couch.

"Don't mind him," John said to the boy. "He's in a mood."

The boy smiled back.

* * *

The boy's name was Bradley Sinclair. He was a year seven at a private school a few miles from the flat. He sat on John's chair and let his feet swing under him as Sherlock paced around the living room. John attempted to continue the small talk until Sherlock finally got it together enough to ask why the boy had come in the first place.

"Do you play any sports?" John asked.

"A little football, but I'm not very-"

Sherlock spun on his heels and turned to Bradley. "Enough. I can't take another minute of this drabble. Why did you come here?"

John sat up in his seat. He felt protective of the boy. "Oh, well," Bradley said as his voice waivered nervously, "I think my father did something bad."

Sherlock gestured to Bradley all well keeping eye contact with John. "Something bad? Well let's get the police on the phone right away."

"Sherlock, please, hear him out."

Bradley looked over at John as he talked. "I was looking through his study because I couldn't find my phone. He'd taken it because he thought I was playing on it too much and I wanted it back. So when he was at work I snuck inside his office and looked through his things to find it."

Sherlock's pacing slowed as the story seemed to peak his interest.

"And then I found all of these pictures. They were terrible pictures. So terrible…"

The boy's face fell as he talked and John looked to Sherlock to make sure he laid off the poor kid.

"What kind of pictures?" Sherlock asked slowly.

"Bloody. They were people all bloody and on the ground. They looked dead."

Sherlock looked over at John in surprise. "Dead?"

Bradley nodded. "I think so."

"How long ago was this?" John asked.

Bradley played with the fringe of the blanket John had given him. "Yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Sherlock said.

"Yes," he said. "I was so scared all day at school that he'd see that I looked through his papers and found the pictures so I ran out of the class so fast that I forgot my blazer and I walked all the way here. My friends at school look at your website sometimes and I remember that you aren't the police. You won't call him, right?"

He looked up at Sherlock with such fear and John saw his friend's face change immediately. There was something he'd never seen on Sherlock's face before.

Sympathy.

"No," he said, shaking off the emotion, "of course not."

John leaned towards Bradley. "Do you think your father hurt those people?"

Bradley nodded.

"Why? What makes you think that?" John asked.

Bradley's gaze stayed fixed on the blanket but his lower lip betrayed him. It quivered just enough to show something was wrong. John sat, confused, waiting for an answer. Something was going on in that house, but what?

Sherlock didn't need the missing piece. He walked towards Bradley and knelt down in front of him. "You know he can hurt people. Is that true?"

Bradley nodded again.

That was all he needed. Sherlock stepped away from the boy and walked to the window. "John, the boy's father is an attorney. Very powerful one."

"Yeah," Bradley said. "How'd you know that?"

Sherlock gestured with his hand towards his invisible audience outside. "Nice clothes, private school, new shoes for the winter. Last name Sinclair...recently read about his case against the Brookshire Pharmacies. Couldn't be a coincidence. Mark Sinclair, correct?"

"Yeah," the boy said amazed. "Wow."

John smiled. It wasn't everyday Sherlock got a new fan.

Sherlock gestured towards the door. "You should go," he said.

Bradley held the blanket tight in his hands. "Go?"

Sherlock looked over at him with a trained expression. "You were dismissed from school two hours ago. You already said you don't attend after school activities. Any extra time will arise suspicion."

Bradley's face contorted in fear. "I can't go back."

"You must," Sherlock said. "Or you will be in danger."

"Danger?" Bradley squealed.

"Sherlock…" John chided.

"What?" Sherlock said in complete ignorance.

John put a hand on Bradley's shoulder. "What he means is that this needs to be a bit of a secret until we have time to get more information. If your father thinks that you're talking to detectives then he might start hiding things."

Bradley nodded, a bit reassured.

"That's not what I meant at all," Sherlock said.

John put a hand up to stop Sherlock's doomsday tirade. "Yes it is."

Sherlock pouted and went back to the window.

"Can I come back tomorrow?" Bradley asked.

John looked to Sherlock who nodded ever so slightly.

"Yes," John said. "Please do."


	2. Chapter 2

John watched as Sherlock paced back and forth in front of the window. Every few moments he would peek outside for just a second thinking that John didn't notice. John found it endearing, like Sherlock was an excited puppy waiting for his master to come home.

Bradley said that he got out of school at two-thirty and would come straight over with more information. It was as the clock clicked to four that John began to get nervous for the two of them. The boy had either lost interest in his endeavour or he was in trouble. Whichever reason, John worried that another day without a busy Sherlock would be more annoyance than he could handle.

"Where is he?" Sherlock said under his breath as he tapped on the window pane.

"Got held up at school?"

Sherlock tugged at his jacket. "Unlikely."

"You think you were duped?" John asked.

Sherlock glared.

"What?" John asked.

He shook his head. "I'm not waiting on a child. This is foolish."

John sat back in his chair and smirked. "You've been waiting on a child for the last hour. I should set up playdates for you more often."

The look he received could have wilted a garden but it was worth it. John had never felt more satisfied than seeing Sherlock pissed off, especially when it was at the hand of a little boy.

It was as Sherlock sulked away from the window that the doorbell rang. As hard as he tried to not look excited, Sherlock's entire body perked up like an excited puppy but yet he didn't many any gesture towards the door.

"Really?" John asked.

"What?"

He set down his book next to him on the couch. "He's _your_ client."

"Funny," Sherlock said, "I thought he was our client."

John hoisted himself up. "So you _do_ listen to me."

"At times."

"I'll go get your new buddy," John said. "Maybe I'll put out some juice and biscuits in case you two need a snack."

* * *

Bradley held his school bag close to his chest with his hand woven through the straps. John had allowed him to sit in his chair and the boy sunk back into the seat and his feet hovered six inches above the ground.

Sherlock sat across from him and stared. As hard as John tried to fill the silence, the unnerving eye contact was difficult to overpower.

"Would you like some water?" he asked.

Bradley shook his head for the fifth time. John had run out of refreshments to offer and the boy seemed entirely uninterested or unable to feel comfortable in the flat.

"Why are you here?" Sherlock asked.

Bradley's brow furrowed. "I told you."

"Yes," Sherlock said as he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, "but why are you here _now_?"

Bradley looked back at John for support but there was nothing for him to add. He was just as confused as Sherlock.

"I thought you were going to help."

Sherlock leaned forward. "Help you how?"

Bradley's grip on his bag loosened. "Get him in trouble. You do that. I read about it on your website. You said…"

Sherlock pointed to the bag. "What's in there?"

Bradley sat in silence.

"Clearly you brought something in your school bag. You're protecting it from me. Why?"

His eyes flickered to the front pocket of the rucksack.

"The front. What did you put in there?"

Bradley looked at him with astonishment at the apparent magic trick. "How did you know that?"

John waited for the long-winded explanation but Sherlock sat with the slightest hint of a smile. "Doesn't matter."

John nearly spit out his drink. "Doesn't matter?" he said without thinking.

"No," Sherlock said in frustration, "it doesn't."

"That's a first," John muttered.

Sherlock waved away John with a flick of his hand. "Don't mind him."

"Don't mind _me_? What is going on?" John continued to say under his breath.

Sherlock sat at the edge of the chair and pointed at the bag. "What did you bring?"

Bradley slowly unzipped the front pocket and dug his hand inside. He pulled out a small piece of paper and held it upside down against his leg. His entire body tensed as the paper moved closer and closer to Sherlock's outstretched hand.

John stood back and tried to read Sherlock's body language. They had spent time with children in the course of their cases but he had never seen Sherlock as comforting and open as he was sitting across from Bradley. There was a gentleness to his movements. Instead of the normal tricks and manipulations to get what he wanted, there was a patience as Bradley took his time to hand Sherlock the paper in his hand.

"It was in his desk," Bradley said.

Sherlock looked at him with a side-eye. "You went back into his office?"

Bradley nodded.

"You shouldn't do that," he said as he took the paper.

"He wasn't home," Bradley said. "He's on a trip until Saturday."

"Even so," Sherlock said, "he may suspect if you go in too many times. The more re-entries the higher likelihood that you will forget what you have moved."

Bradley nodded and sat expectantly as Sherlock looked over what he had handed him.

John craned his neck to see what on the paper. All he could see was the bent edge of a photograph and what looked like a face covered in blood. Even from ten feet away he could tell that it wasn't pretty but Sherlock didn't even flinch. He examined the photograph at every angle and placed it back on his lap.

"Were there many of these photographs?"

Bradley shrugged. "Like maybe ten. They're in a drawer."

"I see," Sherlock said as he handed Bradley back the photograph.

"You don't need it?"

Sherlock tapped his head. "Don't need it."

"That's brilliant," Bradley said with a smile.

John could tell that Sherlock was beaming under his tough exterior. His little fan was so doting it was shocking that Sherlock wasn't forcing him to stay around longer to impressive with his various other party tricks.

Sherlock looked at John and pointed to the laptop. "John, don't we have guests coming for supper in a few minutes?"

John couldn't have been more confused than if Sherlock had just jumped up and done a cartwheel down the hallway. "Pardon?"

Sherlock tilted his head and squinted his eyes. "Lestrade and his wife. At five."

"Lestrade…" John began to say before Sherlock gestured subtly to Bradley's relaxed posture in their chair. The boy had certainly gotten comfortable and didn't seem like he'd ever decide to leave on his own.

Sherlock hadn't just bluntly forced Bradley out as was his usual inclination with clients. It was often a clunky goodbye and a walk out of the room while John had to awkwardly tie up the loose ends with people hadn't said two words to during the conversation. Now Sherlock was inventing entire social events to spare the boy's feelings. It was an improvement.

"Of course," John said, "and he will be very hungry. We must get prepared."

Bradley didn't move. Sherlock looked at John in panic. He appeared to desperately not want to say anything to the boy but he'd clean run out of ideas. It was now up to John to do the dirty work.

"Bradley," John said, "do you mind?"

Bradley looked up with a dazed look on his face. "Hm?"

John gestured to their empty kitchen. "We're having guests and…"

"Oh," Bradley said as he grabbed his bag, "sorry. I can go."

"Thank you," John said.

Sherlock got up and walked to the kitchen. He fumbled around the counter and grabbed a plate from the cupboard. "We'll be in touch," Sherlock said from across the room.

Bradley smiled as he went to the door and walked out. He waved goodbye to Sherlock who wasn't paying enough attention to reciprocate or he simply didn't want to. As John shut the door, he couldn't help but laugh.

"What in the bloody hell are you doing?" he asked as Sherlock placed a fork on the plate.

"I said we were having guests," Sherlock said.

John gestured to the pathetic display. "And you grabbed a plate?"

Sherlock held up the utensil. "And a fork," he said with such earnest.

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't see the fork. Now we're ready for the queen."

Sherlock pouted as he put the plate back in the cupboard. "The photograph is not his father's. At least not from any time in the last twenty years."

John stopped cold. "Twenty years?"

Sherlock shook his head and sunk back in his chair. "At least. I suspect that they aren't even his father's. They appear to be part of a collection, perhaps purchased online."

"A collection? Like someone took a picture of a dead body?" John said with disgust.

"Crime scene," Sherlock said. "It was definitely from a crime scene. There is no doubt about that. In the distance there was a marker identifying a shell from the gun that shot the man in the photograph."

John sat, even more confused than before. "But why? Why would he bring you photographs that he knows are fake."

Sherlock tapped the arm of the chair. "I suspect he wants to get his father in trouble."

"His father? Why?"

He looked straight through John.

"What?" John asked.

Sherlock gritted his teeth and got up from the chair.

"What is going on?" John asked.

"He wants me to look at his father. He wants him to get punished for something, John. Anything." Sherlock spoke quietly and shuffled towards his room. His entire posture changed as he spoke.

It was as Sherlock looked up with a damaged expression that John saw it all. It was only a flash but it was long enough to tell the entire story. When he first moved in, John had done his digging on Sherlock and found the usual newspaper clippings on his cases and his various successes. It was only as he entered the dark recesses of Google that he discovered the depths of Sherlock's past that he was so violently private about. It was the clippings about the trial against Gregory Holmes for child abuse against his youngest son. The charges were long and horrific. Initially the scope of Sherlock's past had nearly caused him to say no to sharing the flat in the first place but there was a robotic quality about Sherlock that made it seem like nothing ever really affected him, even the terrible actions by his father.

John knew he wasn't equipped to handle anyone with trauma but Sherlock wasn't like everyone else. He appeared to have moved on in a healthy if not impressively progressive way. But that brief flash said that it wasn't all buried. Not all was forgotten.

Bradley was being abused and Sherlock saw it in him. John hadn't picked up on it in the least but Sherlock had seen straight through the excuses.

That's why he was helping him.

Sherlock needed to save Bradley from the monsters any way he could.


End file.
